Interview: Dylan Godwin of DEAR ALIEN at ALLEY THEATRE

The Alley is now presenting DEAR ALIEN, a show that'll be running through May 31st in the lower Neuhaus space. It is a world premiere by playwright Liz Duffy Adams. BROADWAY WORLD writer Brett Cullum got to sit down with Alley Company member Dylan Godwin and talk about the show, philosophy, and breaking the fourth wall. 

Brett Cullum: What is this about? I mean, I look at this title, and I go, what?

Dylan Godwin: Yeah, it is, it might not be about what you think it's about. I'm sure it's not. It is a really wonderful play by Liz, who did BORN WITH TEETH for us a few years ago. She's also a really good friend, just an incredible, incredible playwright and person. It's basically a story of an advice columnist who has anonymized himself and locked himself in his apartment, because the world has become a little too much to deal with. And it's sort of about his journey to hope. And he gives himself a bit of an ultimatum, which I won't spoil the play by telling you what it is. From that moment, the play sort of takes off, and it's about his journey and his interaction with these letters, and these people that are writing him for advice and for help, and how that changes him.

Brett Cullum: Sounds very timely. I mean, absolutely. And it's interesting, in the Zeitgeist of Plays right now, there are a lot of plays about advice columnists, which is really interesting, and we've seen a couple this year in Houston. But this one in particular gets labeled existentialist theater, and I wanted to ask you, what does that mean?

Dylan Godwin: First to say, it differs from other sorts of quote-unquote advice columnist plays you might see. First of all, they're around because I think a lot of people have a real fascination with advice columnists, and the way that they reach out to people, and then the way that people reach out to them. This is one that explores the different facets of life that don't seem to be easily explained. And it meets the audience where we are right now, kind of navigating this world that we're in, which is not always a bright, easy one, which is one that sometimes offers us challenges beyond what the challenges may have been 15, 20 years ago, but also, at the same time, the same challenges that human beings have been dealing with since the beginning of time. This one is different in that this is a dude who has sort of… for lack of a better word … Little Edie Bouvier Beeled himself into his apartment in this large, unnamed city. And while people are reaching out to him for advice, he's looking to them to show him something new. He's tired of getting the same question over and over and over again, or the same variation of those questions, and he needs something, some transcendently unanswerable question that could be a miracle that could save him.

Brett Cullum: Well, one thing I think is interesting, too, is that it gets compared a lot to Sartre's NO EXIT, because there are three characters. Well, basically, three actors. And the two actors, besides you. The actor and the actress play multiple people, so it's like three people trapped in a room asking each other questions about human nature.

Dylan Godwin: Absolutely, and it's the incredible Brandon Hearnsberger and the equally incredible Melissa Melano, who are actors that can really do anything, and they embody these letters that make their way into the play. And at the beginning, we're not trapped in a room together. At the beginning, they exist on their own, and then they either get invited into, or they invade the space, in the same way that thoughts do, you know? And, I don't know, the audiences are in for some real surprises in the way that that happens.

Brett Cullum: What is the biggest challenge for you in all of this? I mean, obviously, for the other two, it's playing multiple characters, but as an actor, what's the big challenge for you?

Dylan Godwin: Liz has an incredible way of writing dialogue. She's such an intelligent, deeply feeling person that she crafts these thoughts that literally have a head, a body, and a tail, and brings those to life, and at the same time, makes sure the show doesn't just feel like a monologue, because nobody wants to come and hear one person talk for a long time. I'm not one of those people. You will find in this play that the audience is as much a character in it as anyone else is. Without the audience and without that interface that I have with them to converse back and forth, it would become a long rambling speech, and it hasn't, in a really special way. And that has to be attributed to the way that Liz writes and the way that Liz views the world. It's such a unique, beautiful, sometimes sardonic, and deeply funny way of accounting for the world that we live in.

Brett Cullum: Well, you know, Dylan, I'd be there front row if YOU did a big, long monologue just by yourself for hours on end. Now, you've mentioned Liz a lot, the playwright Liz Duffy Adams. What was your connection with her before? I know you did BORN WITH TEETH, correct?

Dylan Godwin: Yeah, you know, Liz and I met the year before the pandemic in the “before times,” because we had done a brief workshop of BORN WITH TEETH together at the Alley, and then we launched that show here, which ended up going to the Guthrie in Minneapolis, and also a production in Sarasota, and that show was just filled with many gifts. It brought me one of my best friends, Mathew Amendt. But it also brought me one of my closest friends, Liz Duffy Adams, and with each inception of that show, we got to know each other better, and now she's kind of in the family category for me. She is just a person that the more you get to know her, the more you love her. And this has been another opportunity to do that and for us to understand how our hearts and our brains work. And she's been so brave as to trust me with this incredibly personal material. I just feel really lucky to get to be a constant collaborator with her.

Brett Cullum: Now, DEAR ALIEN is performed in the Neuhaus, a very intimate space, which fits for this, I'm assuming. 

Dylan Godwin: Oh, yeah, I mean, I love both of our spaces, but there is something so special about working in the Neuhaus, because as actors, we crave that fourth wall sometimes, but in there, the veil is thin, my friend. You feel like the audience is there with you in your lap, you're in their lap, and what they give you in that space is what you turn around and give right back to them. It's a really special place to work, and it's an even more special place to premiere a brand new play. You get that immediate gratification of seeing how they're reacting to it.

Brett Cullum: Well, speaking of giving, what do you hope that people get out of this one?

Dylan Godwin: HOPE. I mean, in the first 20 minutes of the play, I think you will be like, "Why in the hell did he say that?” Because maybe it doesn't feel like that to begin with, but it is a really beautiful, circuitous journey to that. And just speaking personally, it can be hard sometimes, right now, to wake up and keep all the events of the world out, or just live with them. And I think this play, in a really interesting way, teaches us how to do that. Not teaches us, that sounds patronizing, it's not. It gives us an example of how to live in a world that might sometimes feel overwhelming, to still find yourself in that world, to still meet yourself there, where you are, where you wake up that day, and to still find a glimmer of hope in it.

Brett Cullum: It's very timely because we are living in this time where hope is almost in short supply. Everything is going on, it's just so crazy, and it's hard. So let me ask you that. What gives you hope?

Dylan Godwin: The fact that I can still go to work on a Tuesday night, and there are people who want to come to the theater. People that want to hear someone's words other than what the news is splatting at them, or what Facebook and Instagram are splatting at them all the time, and that people still want to sit in a room together and have the experience of letting their beliefs go for a moment, and just being present with other human beings, and, dare I say, letting your heart sync up as you watch a play, and just being in a room together, and knowing that, ultimately, in the end, we are all connected by that invisible thread, and as long as we can still have that, we can still have hope and a little belief in each other.

Brett Cullum: It's interesting how the arts react to the world, and they become more important as the world becomes more confusing, or dire, or whatever the case may be. So, we're certainly in an era where it's rich, and things like DEAR ALIEN obviously speak to a lot of that, and I'm glad to see you doing it.

Dylan Godwin: Thank you. That's a profound statement, by the way, you just made. We should write that down, I think.

Brett Cullum: I probably will write this down eventually.

Dylan Godwin: Yeah, eventually, maybe this afternoon. Maybe people will read it later. 

Brett Cullum: I mean, hopefully. And hopefully, this will do, like, BORN WITH TEETH, and it will have a life after this run, and you will get this amazing credit as being the person that originated the alien in DEAR ALIEN. 

Dylan Godwin: Hope so. I hope that this play gets a big life after this, you know? I really do.

Brett Cullum: We look forward to your next collaboration with Liz Duffy Adams.

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